Game Over
by Zim'sMostLoyalServant
Summary: Gaz gets her hands on a copy of a discontinued game. However, she's about to find out that it was discontinued for a reason... Oneshot.


**A/N: Okay, here's this year's anti-Gaz Halloween story. A little bit of credit needs to go elsewhere for this one. First, I got the basic idea from a certain episode of R. L. Stine's "The Haunting Hour: The Series" (check it out; it's a slightly more mature Goosebumps), so I figured I'd throw that out there. More importantly, thanks need to go to my good friend Eduard Kassel, who helped me to iron out a more detailed plot. So, big thanks to him.**

**Also, shameless plug-in, go check out his work, a lot of which I beta-read/edit for him. It's all very excellent (I'd especially recommend Queen of All Oni).**

**And for those of you who have been following my list of anti-Gaz prompts, you'll have noticed that it's been taken down. That's because apparently since what I had didn't constitute an actual story, it violated site rules. So, if you still want to look at the prompts, I've started a forum for them.**

**Anyway, onwards.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim or any related characters, blah, blah, blah, you all know the drill by now.**

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** Game Over**

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Gaz smirked to herself as she walked into the Mall, towards the large crowd gathered in front of the Game Shack for a special announcement from Game Slave Inc. Pretty much everyone who lived in the city who was even remotely involved in the gaming world had turned out for this – according to popular rumor, the company was finally going to release Ultimate Vampire Piggy Hunter, which had, for reasons unknown, been pulled from production during the beta-testing stage years earlier.

'Well, the rumor mill's half-right for once,' Gaz thought as her smirk widened; insider knowledge really _was_ a blessing.

Meandering towards the crowd, she allowed her reputation to get her a good spot, as gamers young and old scampered away as they saw her approach, until she was standing dead center of the crowd, where she stopped. The other gamers continued to back away, however, leaving her with plenty of breathing room. They all knew better than to crowd her or agitate her in any way.

'Well, _almost_ all of them,' Gaz amended mentally with a small snarl as she heard a familiar annoying voice coming from a small clump of people off to the side – they had apparently been too focused on the speaker to notice her presence. Well, she'd have to fix that, wouldn't she?

"…And they say the game has a secret ending that can only be unlocked by beating the high score," Iggins said to the crowd that had gathered around him, not noticing their looks of fear as Gaz approached him from behind, "And of course, _I'm_ going to be the first one to unlock it, because as everyone knows, _I'm_ the superior gamer."

"Oh, is that a fact?" Gaz asked as she came to a stop a foot behind him, crossing her arms as she narrowed her eyes more so than usual.

"Yeah, it is, as a mat-GAH!" Iggins began to boast, only to give a rather high-pitched yelp as he turned around, finding himself face-to-face with the source of all his nightmares. Falling onto his rear, he scuttled back until he bumped into a decorative column, his eyes bugging out more so than usual in fear.

"I thought you'd have learned your lesson about which of us is superior at anything last time," Gaz said as she continued to glare at him. This seemed to snap Iggins out of his shock, and he shakily got back to his feet.

"H-Hey, that didn't prove anything about gaming!" he hesitantly shouted, "All you did was steal my Game Slave 2-"

"Stole it _back_, you mean," Gaz interrupted.

"-You never did anything to prove your gaming skills are better than mine!" Iggins continued, "And when Ultimate Vampire Piggy Hunter is released, I'll prove I really am the superior gamer when I unlock that secret ending before you do!"

"I wouldn't count on that," Gaz replied, her smirk returning as the ceiling retracted and a king-sized screen lowered in front of the Game Shack, the crowd murmuring in anticipation.

"And you're about to find out why," she added, turning her attention to the screen as Iggins did likewise, though he glared at her suspiciously out of the corner of one of his bug eyes.

"Attention All Gamers!" the loud, obnoxious voice of the announcer shouted as the Game Slave logo appeared on the screen, "We Here At Game Slave Inc. Know That You've All Heard The Rumors That Ultimate Vampire Piggy Hunter Is Back In Production!"

The crowd burst into applause as a picture of the Vampire Piggy Hunter surrounded by flames replaced the company logo… except for Gaz, whose smirk widened in anticipation.

"Well, We, As Soulless Businessmen, Are Happy To Crush Your Expectations!" the announcer continued, as the screen switched back to the logo.

The crowd went silent, as the gamers all stared at the screen in shock.

"It's True, Folks! After Poor Results During Beta Testing – Which Our Advertising Agents Advise Against Elaborating On – UVPH Was Cancelled And All Copies Of The Beta Cartridge Were Destroyed! Except One, Which Somehow Slipped Through The Net Until We Recently Discovered It Gathering Dust In A Storage Warehouse! We Have Put This Cartridge On Auction-"

The crowd once again burst into excited chatter, only to once again be cut down by the announcer.

"-And We Have Already Sold It!"

The crowd collectively groaned, quite a few of those assembled bursting into tears.

"Yes, We Are Happy To Announce That Professor Membrane, The Inventor Of Super Toast-" the screen briefly switched to the standard Membrane family publicity photo, featuring the Professor placing his hands on the shoulders of his children, Dib smiling at the camera as Gaz focused on her Game Slave, "Has Paid Us Triple Our Average Annual Profits In Order To Purchase The Last Remaining Copy Of UVPH For His Children's Own Personal Use!"

The screen switched back to the Game Slave logo as the announcer concluded, "We Know This Is A Terrible Loss For All Of You – So Please, Fill The Void In Your Meaningless Lives With Some Of Our Other Overpriced Products! Remember, You Are All Slaves To The Game!"

With that, the screen retracted back into the ceiling, as the whole crowd turned to stare at Gaz, who began snickering at the looks on their faces, _especially_ Iggins, whose jaw was hanging halfway to the floor.

"But… if you already have the game," someone in the crowd dared to speak up, "Why'd you bother coming down here?"

"Mostly so I could do this," Gaz said simply, as she took out her cell phone to snap a picture of the stunned look on Iggins' face. This act seemed to snap the boy out of his shock somewhat, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tried to process what had just happened.

"But, you, I, gamer, secret ending…" he stammered out.

"Yeah, about that," Gaz said as she put her phone away, "Don't worry. I'll let you know when I've unlocked it. I probably won't tell you what it _is_, of course, but I'll let you know I've reached it."

One of Iggins' bugged out eyes twitched, before he gave out a massive wail and sank into a heap, sobbing as sad music filled the air.

"Pft. Whiner," Gaz snorted as she made her way to the exit, flipping a quarter to the violin-playing street performer standing nearby as she did so.

XXXXXXX

"Welcome home, daughter!" Professor Membrane greeted from one of his hover screens as Gaz walked into her home, "You'll be happy to know that item you asked me to purchase for you has arrived."

Gaz's eyes actually opened in excitement as she noted the package sitting on the living room table. She quickly walked over to it and ripped it open, sorting through the packing peanuts for her prize. Dib, who was standing nearby, raised an eyebrow at his sister before turning to look at the screen bearing his father's image.

"So you can shell out close to a billion dollars to get her a video game, but you can't loan me a few bucks for that equipment to Bigfoot-proof the garage?" Dib asked, sounding just a tad bitter.

"Oh, my poor insane son," Membrane said, shaking his head with a sigh, "Unlike your crazy nonsense, these games your sister enjoys are made by REAL SCIENCE! Lesser real science, but real science nonetheless. And it's also been proven that video games improve hand-eye coordination, so unlike your deluded fantasies, her hobby actually helps her.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more REAL SCIENCE to attend to."

With that, the screen flew off, leaving Dib to sigh in annoyance, before turning his attention back to his sister. Gaz had retrieved the game cartridge, pitch black except for the image of the Vampire Piggy Hunter wreathed in flames on the front; the whole thing gave off a faint aura of creepiness as it sat there in her hands.

"…Is it supposed to be glowing like that?" Dib asked, as he stepped forward to take a closer look.

"Touch it and die," Gaz growled, causing Dib to stop in his tracks and quickly move back.

"Geez, don't you think you take this stuff too seriously?" he asked, eyeing her warily.

"You _would_ say that," Gaz snorted, "Your game skills suck too badly to really understand how amazing they are. You're a total no0b."

"Is that even a word?"

Gaz merely glared at Dib, before making her way towards the stairs. Reaching them, she paused and turned to give Dib a look.

"By the way – leave."

"What?" Dib blinked in confusion.

"I don't want you disturbing me while I play this," Gaz replied, "So go see what stupid plan Zim's come up with this week, or go hunt for ghost hamsters at the pet cemetery, or something. I don't care, just get out of the house."

"You're throwing me out my own house so you can play your game?!" Dib shouted in complete disbelief.

"I'm giving you a chance to leave willingly," Gaz said with a threatening growl, "Would you rather I call security?"

Shuddering at the thought of Gaz's "toys", Dib quickly turned on his heel and made for the front door.

"I'll just leave you to it, then," he said quickly, before disappearing out the door.

Snickering slightly, Gaz turned back to the stairs and made her way up to her room, shutting the door behind her before making herself comfortable on her bed. Pulling out her Game Slave 2, she double-checked to make sure it had fresh batteries, before installing the cartridge and turning the system on. The image of the Vampire Piggy Hunter wreathed in flames, with the title "Ultimate Vampire Piggy Hunter" superimposed over it, appeared on the screen. The image then switched over to the start screen, Gaz raising an eyebrow at what she saw.

The character avatar of the Vampire Piggy Hunter stood on a platform, surrounded by icons representing the various items Gaz could choose from to start the game with. However, while the Hunter was dressed in the usual outfit, the character otherwise looked rather… nerdy. He was quite scrawny, was wearing large glasses, had pimples, and she was pretty sure she saw braces peeking out from under his lips.

'Huh, must be some designer's idea of a joke,' she brushed it off with a mental shrug, 'They probably would have fixed it in the final product. Guess I'll just have to deal with it.'

Deciding to move on and actually play the game, Gaz quickly scanned the starter items and selected what her trained eye told her would giver her the best balance of offensive and defensive traits. She then hit start, and immersed herself in the world of the game.

XXXXXXX

Over two hours later, Gaz was facing down the final boss, the Supreme Demon Hog Vlad The Imporker. The game had been surprisingly challenging, but not really anything a skilled gamer like herself couldn't handle. Now, she put her skills to work, dodging the lances the giant armor-wearing pig was throwing at her, tossing bombs at if from a distance to throw it off balance before daring to dart in close for a few strikes from her long sword, and darting back to get out of range of its own close attacks.

This went on for a few minutes, with Gaz losing her shield and an unexpected amount of her extra armor and hit points, but she finally managed to strike the killing blow on Vlad, killing him. She smirked as the screen displayed a cut-scene of the giant hog's body being skewered on one of his own lances, with the Vampire Piggy Hunter standing triumphantly over the corpse (which, admittedly, looked a little weak with the avatar's nerdy appearance). Her smirk widened as the words "New High Score" flashed on the screen, and she quickly typed her name into the screen presented, allowing it to appear on the presented scoreboard, above what she assumed was the name of the last beta tester to play the game.

"Well, sorry 'Tim'," she said sarcastically, "But it looks like I just beat your score."

"Congratulations: GAZ!" the automated voice of the game's announcer boomed from her Game Slave's speakers, "You have proven that you _are_ the Ultimate Vampire Piggy Hunter! Prepare for your reward!"

Gaz's eyes widened in anticipation of the secret ending about to be unlocked… only to widen further in confusion as her Game Slave began glowing with an aura of darkness and levitated out of her hands into the air.

"What the-?" Was all she managed to get out before the Game Slave's screen turned blinding white and shot out a beam of light that hit her directly in the chest. Gaz only managed to give a surprised shriek before her body transformed into a stream of energy that was sucked through the beam of light into the Game Slave.

The beam of light cut off for a moment, before a second one shot out, bringing with it a differently colored stream of energy was deposited on the bed, where it soon took solid shape. However, it was not Gaz who reappeared, but rather a scrawny, nerdy-looking twenty-something in casual clothing that Gaz would have recognized as having only minutes ago been the player avatar in the game.

For this was the true reason Ultimate Vampire Piggy Hunter had been pulled from production. During the beta testing stage, a spooky old gypsy woman had placed a curse on the game (because that's just what spooky old gypsy women do); anyone who beat the high score was pulled inside the game to act as the player avatar, only able to escape when someone else beat their score and took their place. And try as they might, Game Slave Inc.'s advertising agents just _couldn't_ find a way to put a positive spin on that, so the game had been pulled and all copies of the cursed game had been destroyed (save for this copy, which had been overlooked, and finally sold upon discovery because they were all greedy businessmen). Of course, this probably killed whoever was stuck in the games, but since they were all disposable blue-collar workers, the company didn't really care.

But enough exposition, and back to the story…

Tim the Beta Tester blinked in confusion as he took in his surroundings, before the sound of the now-normal-looking Game Slave hitting the bed brought his attention to it. As he saw it, his eyes widened and a manic grin split his face.

"I'm free," he said softly, before he began laughing in a decidedly unhinged sounding way, "I'm free! I'm finally free! Thanks whoever you were; I hope you enjoy that hell! I'm _freeeee!_"

Laughing almost psychotically, Tim ran towards the nearest exit, not caring that it was the window. Or that said window was closed. After picking himself up from his two-story fall and ignoring his resulting injuries – including the chunks of glass still stuck in him – he ran down the street, laughing and shouting his mantra as he did so.

Meanwhile, the Game Slave sat unattended on the bed, eventually switching itself off from inactivity.

XXXXXXX

_Some Time Later_

Gaz grunted as she shifted on the tree stump she was using as a seat, trying to get comfortable. As she did, she wondered for the millionth time how long she'd been stuck here – it was always night, and it seemed she no longer needed to sleep, eat, or perform certain other biological requirements, so she couldn't even use those as a means of passing the time.

All things considered, she'd handled the shock of finding herself being sucked into a video game, aged up into a teenager/young adult, and finding herself dressed as the Vampire Piggy Hunter, pretty well. She'd seen weirder stuff, after all.

She'd even been excited at first, seeing this as the ultimate gaming experience… until realizing that all the enemies were either dormant or missing. She'd tried destroying the surroundings to try and activate them or draw them out, only for all the damage to instantly regenerate. At this point, she'd finally realized the truth of her situation – without someone actively playing the game, _nothing_ would happen, leaving her alone in an empty wasteland, without anything to do. And when someone actually _was_ playing…

As if on cue, Gaz blacked out, before finding herself standing immobile on the game's starter platform, surrounded by the icons of the possible starter items.

'Here we go again,' she thought with an annoyed mental groan.

As she'd eventually found out, not only was a player required for anything to actually happen in the game world, but when there _was_ a player, she was completely at said player's will, unable to make a single move without a command from the player, leaving her completely reliant on the player's gaming skills instead of her own.

And this player _sucked!_ This fact was hammered home as she was equipped with items that focused too much on offense, leaving her defense rather weak. She couldn't speak when the game was played, and she was pretty sure the player wouldn't be able to hear her even if she could. As such, she couldn't protest as she was given highly unbalanced stats, and soon found herself standing in the graveyard that was the first level, facing down a horde of zombie pigs. She once again had to get used to the odd feeling of not being in control of her body as it ran forward, swinging the sword in her right hand wildly.

'Doesn't this moron know how to freaking _aim?!_' She hissed mentally, before following up with a bright curse as one of the zombies got through her meager defense and bit her – another downside she'd discovered was that she could actually feel pain, which kind of detracted from any enjoyment she might still be able to get out of her situation.

Surprisingly, she actually managed to kill the rest of the zombies without further damage. But just as she was starting to think maybe the player was improving, she found herself running up to a chasm and jumping prematurely, missing the other side and falling into the depths. With a feeling like being punched in the gut, she found herself suddenly back where she started, once again facing down the horde of zombie pigs.

'Oh, come on! That was barely even a fraction of the level!' Gaz complained loudly in her mind, as her body was commanded to start wasting throwing knives that should have been saved for stronger enemies. At this rate, the high score would never be broken, and she'd never get out of here.

'What idiot am I being controlled by?!'

XXXXXXX

Dib sighed as he managed to get the Hunter character across the chasm this time, only to get overrun by Franken-Boars. He really didn't get what the big deal with games like this was, when they seemed to just be excuses to kill things and get killed yourself, but Gaz had enjoyed them…

Sighing again, this time in a bit of sorrow, he paused the game and took a look around his sister's empty room. Aside from the bed he was sitting on and the Game Slave in his hand, his father had had all of Gaz's things put into storage a month ago. Technically speaking, the search for her and the investigation into her disappearance were both still ongoing, but after six months the police, the FBI _and_ all the private investigators Professor Membrane's money could buy had all agreed that the chances of finding Gaz were slim. So he had put all her belongings away in order to convert her bedroom into a guest suite for any future visitors and had moved on. Dib, meanwhile, had smuggled the Game Slave out of its container for nostalgic reasons.

Gaz might have been a self-centered bully, but she had still been his sister. And he thought that maybe by playing her favorite game on her favorite system, in what had once been her room, he could form a sort of bond with her that they'd never shared when she'd actually been there. Plus, the character did kind of look like her (albeit a somewhat older version of her), so that helped with the bonding feeling.

Of course, on the other hand, he'd really just proven that she was right about his gaming skills after all.

Too depressed by this train of thought to continue, Dib switched the Game Slave off and tossed it aside onto the bed, before getting up and leaving to head for his own room. He'd probably come back and play again the next day, or whenever he particularly missed Gaz. He didn't play it on a regular basis, though.

It wasn't like he was trying to beat the high score or something.

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** The End**

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**A/N: So there you go. Do you all enjoy the irony of Gaz's life now being controlled by Dib without him even realizing it? I know I do.**

**And sorry about skipping over the majority of the game play, but I haven't played video games on a regular basis in a long time, so I don't have enough of a grasp on the mechanics or terminology to give lots of details.**

**Happy Halloween, and please read and review!**


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